JuneBug
by AppleLass
Summary: She's resistance, he's enlightened. They meet cute... and then aliens? It's just a game, until it's not.


A/N: This is a light fluff piece based on two agents playing within the Ingress game. I don't own Ingress, and I'm not making any $$ off of this. Any resemblence of these characters to real players or agents is entirely coincidental - I tried to give them names completely different from what I've seen. This story is only the first of many, which will range in theme and length. Enjoy!

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"I can't believe he just took down my farm!"

Eliza sat up in bed, shock and disbelief in her voice. There was a muffled groan next to her, but she ignored it. Her beautiful portals, which she and a friend had recently converted into a haven of resistance, were now a sickly green color. If it wasn't almost one in the morning, she would have hopped in her car and driven all the way into town.

The culprit? He was probably a college student who could just roll out of bed and take a stroll right into the heart of her territory at a moment's notice. She frowned at her phone, his agent name mocking at her in lime green letters. She muttered a few choice phrases under her breath and blew her bangs out of her vision with a huff. Once again the figure sleeping next to her grumbled.

"I know you're asleep, but HyperEye just took down all my portals. And from the look of it, he and his friends are on a late night rampage." She could not quite hear his response, as it was muffled by a pillow, but it sounded suspiciously like "just a game."

Maybe it was just a game - fighting over population control and claiming portals like a high tech version of capture the flag. But it gave her something to look forward to after work, and that was welcome. Her current bedmate did not share her interest in the game, even though she'd tried to get him involved.

What was she going to do about the destruction she had just witnessed? She noticed one last portal fighting back with only two resonators left on line. She recharged them as best as she could using her portal key, but within a few minutes it too turned green.

Based on the new resonators she could see, he was way above her own level. No, there wasn't much she could do now, especially not at night. She shivered, thinking about her recent experience with a homeless man a few towns over who had approached her as she had been building her largest field yet. He had started talking animatedly about being in jail, not believing in any law, and doing whatever it took to survive. At the time she had been half convinced he was going to rob her or kidnap her. After that she had been careful not to go out taking portals at night.

What she needed was a partner in crime. Danny, an old college friend, had been the one to get her into the game, but their schedules rarely overlapped. They had made plans to go out farming in a few days after work, but Eliza did not want to wait that long. She needed action. Over the faction COMM, a feed HyperEye supposedly did not have access to, she transmitted: DannyBoy GOING ON THE WARPATH

If she didn't already have commitments taking up every spare moment of her time over the next few days, she would start sooner. Eliza sighed and leaned back down into bed, finally turning off her phone. There was no way she was going to be able to sleep now, she thought, but moments later the sun was peeking in through her blinds.

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Danny agreed to meet her after he was out of work, so they set a time close to dusk. Stocked up and still fuming, she waited for him in a small parking lot one street over from where they were going. There was a lone guy on his cell phone at the other end of the parking lot, so she sat in her car and looked over the layout of the portals they would shortly be targeting.

The area in contention was small - in fact, all six portals were locations in the grounds of a historic house turned museum. It was full of colonial significance, but all Eliza cared about was the name on the portals. She looked again at the map and tried to strategize the most efficient use of XMPs.

There was a tap on her window and she looked up. Danny grinned down at her.

"You ready?"

He nodded. "Sure thing. What did you want to do again?"

"Take back that park!" Eliza pointed.

"Okay. I'm just going to go in and start blowing things up. I'm trying to level - I'm only 20,000 away right now."

Eliza shrugged. He was higher level than she, and could afford to do that. She had to place each one carefully for maximum effect if she wanted any chance of taking all six. "I wish we had theme music," she joked.

They started around the back of the house and worked their way around to the front. Last week Eliza had actually met some of the women who worked in the museum when she had come during lunch, and they had encouraged her to come over and walk the grounds whenever she liked. It made her feel much more comfortable about traipsing all over the grass.

By the time they had reached the front and Eliza was just beginning to smile and place shields, the portal in the back of the house turned green. Eliza gasped. She quickly looked up to try to see what could have happened, but she already knew the answer. An Enlightened agent was there, and an excited frizzle of awareness hit her as she realized it was HyperEye.

There were obviously more Enlightened agents in the town than just him, but he was one of the most active, and the one whose turf seemed to overlap the most with hers. Eliza looked up, scanning the area for him. She saw Danny almost to the side of the house, moving towards the back, his phone held casually by his side. He was much less obvious than she was about the game, apparently. She always had her nose stuck right up to the screen.

Moments later the portal turned blue again and stayed blue, but Eliza was already moving. She came around and found Danny among some hedges. "What happened?"

"Did you see him?"

"See who? HyperEye?"

"Yeah. He was here."

She looked around wildly, but they appeared to be the only ones who were there. "Where did he go? Did he say anything to you?"

Danny shrugged in response to the first question. "He asked which one of us I was." Danny gestured to the screen. Of course. If they could see his name on the portals, he obviously could see them. He knew exactly who was here and what they had been doing. And, as predicted, he probably rolled right out of bed and decided to come and mess with them.

"What else?"

Danny finally looked up at her, amused. "Well, he asked what level I was, and he said he'd probably be back later when we were done."

A dark cloud descended over Eliza's face. "He wouldn't dare."

Danny laughed. "Come on, Eliza. That's the entire game - taking portals from each other. It's the entire point of it all. That and making fields. Come on - we're almost done, and then we can head back into campus."

Eliza sighed. Maybe Danny had a point. Maybe she should just relax and let this little area go. If she got upset every time it went green, she would be upset all of the time.

"What did he look like?"

"Tall? I dunno. Geeky T-shirt. Maybe around our age." Hmm. So maybe not an undergrad. Graduate student then?

Later that night when the inevitable happened and HyperEye took back the portals, he left a little note for Eliza. JuneBug NICE TRY.


End file.
